Its wounds multiplied, its stamina drained away, and the cramps in its belly and weakness from blood loss felt like a steadily tightening noose. In the Earth Vein Lizard's ocher eyes, its initial fury and ferocity gradually gave way to an instinctive fear of death. It realized that the seemingly insignificant human before it was far more dangerous than it had imagined. That strange blue-violet energy and elusive footwork were dragging it, little by little, into a hopeless situation.
The surrounding snow had long since lost its pristine whiteness. Blood that had sprayed, flowed, and splattered stained it in glaring patches of dark red. Mixed with earth, snowmelt, and its own excrement, it gave off a powerful animal stench and the smell of rust.
"ROOOAR!!!"
After another futile swipe missed, only for Loa to seize the opening and cut a bone-deep gash beneath its foreleg, the Earth Vein Lizard finally let out a furious roar filled with unwillingness and a certain desperate resolve.
It abruptly curled its thick, long tail inward, drawing in its limbs and head at the same time. With an agility that belied its cumbersome appearance, its enormous body instantly curled into a tightly packed ball! Immediately afterward, the remaining liquefied earth element magic within it surged out wildly. Mixing with the soil and gravel soaked in its blood, it rapidly solidified and spread. In the blink of an eye, a hard, gray-brown shell of stone over half a meter thick, covered in jagged protrusions, formed around its curled body! Its already razor-sharp, serrated dorsal ridges now became the most savage and lethal spikes on this armored stone ball!
It did not stop. A muffled rumble of magic came from inside the curled stone ball. The next instant, this terrifying sphere, nearly four meters across, began rolling